Cocaine Blame for Stock Market Volatility, Says Italy | Care2 Causes

There’s an old economics joke that since “the market” is made up of 25-year-old traders, all it really wants is sex and cocaine. It turns out, though, that this may not be too far off from the truth: Italian officials are currently considering mandatory drug tests for all stock market traders. According to Carlo Giovanardi, an undersecretary to Silvio Berlusconi, one of the reasons why the stockmarket has so many inexplicable ups and downs is because those who are running the thing are not capable of making decisions because they’re high on cocaine. This is the first step in implementing drug testing policies for anyone who takes responsibility for the lives or money of others. Though some might think that this is simply a ploy to take attention off of Italy’s weak market, it does point to an interesting question: why do markets fluctuate so much? One reason that makes a...